Free Time
Zechariah had been unable to speak for nine months. When his voice finally came back, his first words were about God. I'm not sure I would have done nearly as well. A reflection on Luke 1:67–80.
Luke 1:67–80
Phrases that spoke to me today:
• his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied
• to give knowledge of salvation to his people
• you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways
• the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness
Applying the Word to My Life:
Zechariah had been unable to speak for nine months. From the moment the angel appeared to him in the temple until the day his son was named, he was silent. No voice. No words. Whatever he had to say had to wait.
When it came time to name the child and the neighbors turned to Zechariah for the final word, he asked for a writing tablet. He wrote: his name is John. And immediately his mouth opened.
His first words were about God.
If I had been unable to speak for nine months, I am not sure what I would have said first. I'm betting it would not have been a canticle of praise. There are people I would have wanted to catch up with. Things I needed to get off my chest. Zechariah used the same window to talk about what God had done and what God was going to do.
We don't live under that constraint. We live in an era where words are free. Not just words — time, attention, entertainment. There is more content available right now than a person could get through in a thousand lifetimes. Every pocket of silence can be filled immediately. And I think we are lost in having so much. When nothing costs anything, we stop asking what any of it is worth. The words pile up. Most of them don't say anything.
When I was at the law firm, I spent a lot of time on the first sentence of briefs. The judge reading it had a small window — maybe twenty minutes for something I had spent weeks building. The first sentence either made him want to keep reading or it didn't. If it landed, every argument after it had a chance. If it didn't, the rest of the brief was working uphill. I learned that when your window is limited, you had better know what you are trying to say before you start saying it.
Zechariah came out of nine months of silence knowing exactly what he wanted to say. Not one word of it was about himself. Nothing was wasted. Every line pointed somewhere.
John went on to live his entire life that way. He grew up in the wilderness — no court, no regular audience, no comfortable position. When people came out to him, he had one thing to offer. His whole life was pointed toward the one who was coming. Every word counted because he lived as if none of them were free.
The call doesn't stop with John. It extends to us. We are given the same mission: to prepare the way and bring the people around us to a knowledge of what God has done for them.
Our time is shorter than we think. Our words are fewer than we assume. Our deeds do not multiply on their own. The scope of what we are called to do is bigger than any of us can pull off alone — and none of that is a reason to panic. It is a reason to decide what we are trying to give before we open our mouths.
If you were in Zechariah's place, what would you have said? What does that say about you?
My Response for Today:
Today I will think about one conversation I have coming up and decide in advance what I am actually trying to give the other person — not just what I want to say.